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Published: December 31st 2006
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Well yet again time has flown and we have been slacking! Oh well, this might be another mammoth entry so bear with me!
So….since last time……
We spent a weekend in Mumbai (Bombay) a few weeks ago. We traveled up by train overnight which takes 12 hours. The train was actually much nicer than we were expecting, there are 7 classes of train travel in India, we went second class sleeper, which is about the middle. Basically there are 2 long padded bench seats seating 6 people which convert to 4 bunks and then the luggage racks make up the other 2 bunks. You can hire a sheet, pillow and blanket for 20Rs. So after a fairly good nights sleep, (once we blocked out the farting burping snore-fest going on around us with cotton wool in our ears!) we arrived in Mumbai at 6am. We found a fairly nice hotel, it seems in Mumbai you get to stay in a very dodgy stinky dorm or shell out 30 quid a night for an ok hotel, no in between!
So anyway, Terry loved Mumbai, I hated it! But then again I don’t really like cities at the best of
times let alone in 35 degree stinky heat! We had 2 full days as the second day we didn’t leave on the train ‘til 11 pm. So spent the first day doing a whistle stop of the sights and the second day in a lovely air conditioned shopping mall! Terry is going to go back at some point without me so he can have a proper mooch around!
Clive and Vanessa were here for a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was great to catch up with them and we managed to spend a few lazy beach days and boozy nights with them!
The run up to Christmas here was very strange, there is a fairly large percentage of Christians here so there are lots of familiar things, people put up lights and decorations, the restaurants and shops play Christmas music, there is midnight mass and carol singers and there is the “Sainsbury’s Rush” in the market on Christmas eve. Despite all that, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas! Although there were lots of places doing roast turkey dinners we decided to do Christmas at home, Giane and Babu, Abo and Amanda and us. The logistics of cooking
chicken, roast spuds, stuffing, veg (including, the worlds most expensive spouts!) on 2 gas rings a combi microwave and a Mean green grilling machine was very interesting! Well Giane and I got organized and managed to get it all done, and on time, no mean feat I can tell you!
So dinner over, Tel and I rushed off to the beach, and spent an hour in the sea, well you have to on Christmas day don’t you?! In the evening we went for drinks at Giane and Babu’s house. A few drinks turned into a few more, evening turned to night and then morning and we ended up sleeping on the sofa for a few hours before a Boxing Day fry up! We are officially OFF beer now!
We have just got back from a few days in Karnataka, the next state south; we went to a little town called Gokana which is on the coast. Gokana means ‘Cow’s Ear’ as it is said that Shiva, one of the Hindu gods was reborn, out of a cow’s ear, on the beach here (?!) Hindu people visit for a few days to go to the temples and to bathe
Chinese meal
With Clive and Vanessa and Giane's Mum Sally in the sea on the sacred beach. The town itself is a strange place, lots of little alleyways and lanes there are temples on nearly every corner and at the end of town there is holy bathing pool. We went to see the pool expecting it to be a large bath and found an olympic size pool! In the middle of town we came across a Temple Chariot, it is HUGE, during the Shiva festival it takes 100 people to pull it through the streets. The beaches there were lovely, we went to Om beach, so called as it is the shape of the Buddhist Om symbol, it was fairly deserted with just one beach shack at the end. We would both like to go back and have a better look around as we only had 2 days, not sure if we will tho’ as there are so many other places that we haven’t been to.
We are going down to Kerala, (2 states south) on the 5th Jan and are hoping to sort out a trip from there to visit the Lakshadweep Islands, (look them up on the net if you want to be really envious!) It seems
like a difficult place to organize visiting so fingers crossed!
Anyway, today is New Years Eve, Goa is packed with tourists here for the celebrations, quite a lot of English people but mostly Indian tourists from other states. Neither of us really feels like partying so we are going to go to Giane and Babu’s for pizza and have a fairly quiet evening. (Famous last words!)
We seem to have hundreds of photos so we will add some more to this blog in the next day or two, watch this space!
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